With the the end of the licensing deal, Apple decided to omit YouTube from its default app menu in all iOS devices, telling AllThingsD last month: "Customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store."

The reprogrammed app's advanced features include social sharing as well as access to tens of thousands of previously unavailable music videos, notes GigaOm. Apple's pre-installed version did not allow ads on clips, explains USA Today--which meant that users could not watch any videos whose "copyright owners [don't] allow their content to be shown if there is no way for them to be paid," the paper notes.

With this advertising limitation removed, users can watch the many YouTube clips that were already available on smartphones and tablets running on Google's Android software. "We are offering a better user experience to iPhone users," Francisco Varela, YouTube's global director of platform partnerships, told USA Today.

While the loss of default placement must sting, Apple's iPhone and iPad users should have little trouble finding their way to the App Store to download the new app. Despite the growing popularity of the Android platform--which now accounts for a reported 68% of all smartphone sales--the Apple App Store still accounts for the the largest chunk of app downloads, according to a recent Gartner research report cited by TechCrunch.